Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

The Washington Post: GOP Must Cut Medicaid Or Medicare To Achieve Budget Goals, CBO Finds The House GOP’s budget, which passed last week in a hairline vote, asks the committee responsible for federal health-care spending to find at least $880 billion in savings over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that reducing costs that much won’t be possible without cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (3/5)

Stat: Jay Bhattacharya, Nominee As NIH Director, Toes The Party Line In The Senate The most telling signal from Jay Bhattacharya’s confirmation hearing as nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday lay in what he would not say. He would not say he’d restore funding to grants on LGBTQ issues canceled by the Trump administration — even as he said he didn’t think ideology should determine the direction of science. He would not say that there’s been enough research about the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism, even as a Republican senator declared it would be “pissing away money” on a question that has been extensively studied already. He would not say that he would object if President Trump gave him illegal directives, even as he vowed to follow the law. (Boodman, 3/5)

KFF Health News: Marty Makary, Often Wrong As Pandemic Critic, Is Poised To Lead The FDA He Railed Against Panelists at a covid conference last fall were asked to voice their regrets — policies they had supported during the pandemic but had come to see as misguided. Covid contact tracing, one said. Closing schools, another said. Vaccine mandates, a third said. When Marty Makary’s turn came, the Johns Hopkins University surgeon said, “I can’t think of anything,” adding, “The entire covid policy of three to four years felt like a horror movie I was forced to watch.” (Allen, 3/7)

For a Deeper Dive...

Modern Healthcare: HHS To End Public Comment Requirements For Grants, Contracts The Health and Human Services Department is abandoning a Nixon-era practice that offered transparency into federal policymaking in a move that limits the public and the healthcare sector's ability to influence government actions. Instead, HHS intends to comply with the bare-minimum requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, or APA, and only engage in the traditional notice-and-comment process as expressly dictated by that law, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a policy statement published Friday. HHS had followed the now-defunct guidelines for 54 years. (Early, 2/28)

The Washington Post: VA Plans To Cut 80,000 Employees, The Latest In Trump’s Efforts To Downsize The Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans Wednesday to cut roughly 80,000 jobs, more than 15 percent of its employees, the latest in President Donald Trump’s effort to slash the federal workforce. According to a memo obtained by The Washington Post, the cuts are meant to reduce the department’s workforce to just under 400,000 employees, its size in 2019. (Gupta, 3/5)

The Hill: House Republican Says He ‘Can’t Guarantee’ Staff Cuts Won’t Impact Veterans Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) on Monday defended the budgets and workforce cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs, as he said he “can’t guarantee” veterans’ benefits and care would be immune from cuts. In an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, Murphy said the cuts are essential to reining in government spending and restructuring to ensure the agencies work efficiently for the American people. (Fortinsky, 3/3)

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Waivers Linked To Housing, Nutrition Dropped By CMS The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rescinded waivers for programs that fund housing, nutrition and other social services for high-risk Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program enrollees. The agency rolled back guidance linked to health-related social needs programs under Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waivers. States use these programs to pay for wraparound services such as temporary housing and meals for children and adults who may become homeless, struggle with mental illness and transition from institutional care, among other risk factors. (Kacik, 3/4)

Politico: Top HHS Spokesperson Quits After Clashing With RFK Jr. The top spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department has abruptly quit after clashing with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his close aides over their management of the agency amid a growing measles outbreak, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Thomas Corry announced on Monday that he had resigned “effective immediately,” just two weeks after joining the department as its assistant secretary for public affairs. (Cancryn, 3/3)

Modern Healthcare: NIH Funding Cuts Blocked By Federal Judge A federal judge blocked the National Institutes of Health’s grant funding cuts that academic health systems warn would stymie research. U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Angel Kelley on Wednesday granted a motion from attorneys general, medical schools and universities requesting a nationwide preliminary injunction. The injunction replaces a national temporary restraining order Kelley issued Feb. 10, likely setting up a win for the states and hospitals and a possible government appeal. (Kacik, 3/5)

The New York Times: Guarded N.I.H. Nominee Faces Sharp Questions On Vaccines And Research Cuts Under hostile questioning from senators of both parties, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, said on Wednesday that he was “convinced” vaccines did not cause autism even as he urged more research on the question, which scientists say has long been settled. (Mueller and Gay Stolberg, 3/5)

The Washington Post: Universities Scramble To Respond To Federal Funding Cuts Some universities are freezing hiring, admitting fewer graduate students and warning that recent federal changes and proposals pose an existential threat to higher education. A U.S. judge last month put a temporary block on Trump administration orders for deep cuts to federal funding rates that the National Institutes of Health provides to support overhead costs for research at academic institutions. (Svrluga, 3/3)

The Washington Post: Inside The Upheaval At Trump’s NIH: Lasting Consequences For U.S. Science The Trump administration’s orders have created more turmoil and damage at the National Institutes of Health than was previously known. (Johnson and Achenbach, 3/5)

For the Visual Among Us...

A few years ago I started a weekly e-mail for friends and colleagues who want to keep up on major federal health policy developments but did not have time to plod through all the minutiae--they were busy doing important things like running organizations and taking care of patients! Much to my surprise, it became pretty popular. I have now converted to a weekly newsletter format so you can manage your own subscription preferences and forward to others that might be interested.

These summaries represent my judgement on health policy issues that may not on the front pages, but are relevant to clinicians, administrators, and educators. I monitor many news sources and clipping services to identify content for this newsletter and I try hard to be as factual, balanced, and non-partisan as possible. While the articles are written by others (with credit attributed), the choice of what to include is entirely mine. If you are interested in receiving a daily summary of health policy news, you might consider signing up for the KHN Morning Briefing. If you enjoy podcasts, I suggest What the Health? and Tradeoffs.

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD